May can be a desperate time for teachers. We’re just…tired. Fall asleep on the couch after dinner, mainline coffee, bargain with the snooze button, barely recognize your own family, exhausted.
Just think, in the time that it takes to carry a human baby to full term (Baby Ruthie, I’m looking at you), most of us have carried somewhere around 150 (if you’re lucky) students through the year. To clarify this gestational metaphor – by carried, I mean taught. And by taught, I mean pushed. And by pushed, I mean (occasionally) dragged.
Amy wrote about it last week. The crack up. The point at which it all becomes too much and you start to question if you taught them anything. If they are better in any way. If you reached even one. If you’ve been talking to yourself for the last nine months. Because with the approach of graduation, and summer, and sweet, sweet freedom, the opportunities to make that difference seem to dwindle. Students are paying less and less attention these days, to school anyway, and when coupled with the somewhat spent enthusiasm of teachers, the chances of academic magnificence begins to allude us. Which, unfortunately, makes us even more tired.
However, because we care, sometimes to our own detriment, we don’t give up. Amy, unwavering in her commitment to use every last moment, wrote about this too. It’s the moment where banging your head against the wall one last time means you break through instead of breaking down.
In my own effort to keep the spark alive, I have my students working on final projects that demand they keep reading and keep creating, right up to the end. Additionally, inspired by Shana’s brilliant use of former students as an engaging resource, I called in a heavy hitter.
Austin Bohn, graduate of Franklin High School in 2013, reached out to me a few months ago with the following email. What followed is an exchange of ideas that solidifies for me that our students often don’t truly see the impact that our classes can have on their lives, until after they’ve left us. Austin has always been inquisitive, insightful, and personable. As a college student, I see in Austin the exact type of young man that we hope our students become – thinkers who value where their reading lives can take them.
Lisa, (because I get to call you Lisa now),
I just wrapped up a discussion post for my Philosophy 4336 course, “Applied Ethics for the Health Professions.” It was just one of those times when you feel as though you’ve hit all the right keys in just the right order. It reminded me of some of the reading and responding we used to do in your classroom.
I’ve attached a short article and my—also short—post in response to it. In it, I draw on Saxton extensively so you’ll probably be able to navigate by just reading that one. There is another article (Connelly), but you’ll likely not need to read it unless you really want to.
I hope that you’ll find it refreshing to read something from a former student, knowing you laid a great foundation that allows me to be able to crank these things out on a weekly basis. I really do appreciate your teaching—I’m only just beginning to grasp its value. You taught me how to think!
All the best,
Austin Bohn
Austin and I continued exchanging emails for several weeks, and when he expressed interest in coming to observe some of my classes and share ideas about college life, reading expectations at the collegiate level, and explore the possibility of teaching someday, I asked if he would like to come in and serve as a motivator for my AP classes,
Austin book talking Ishmael
post test. Austin had been in my AP class and knew well both the project that my students
are working on and the difficulty to focus when the end is so very near.
Two weeks ago, we made a plan for Austin to come in, share some of his insights and experiences as they relate to college level work, chat with students and provide ideas as they craft their final projects, and observe.
What turned out to be the added bonus, and one that’s already had an impact on my classes, was Austin’s book talk on Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. I wasn’t familiar with the text, (a book that details a man’s encounter with a gorilla who has all and none of the answers about life), but the impassioned argument Austin made for reading the book and what it can teach you about thinking, struck a cord. Specifically, with another young man in my AP Language class.
Bennett Dirksmeyer is a thinker too. A quiet, careful, deep thinker. When he emailed me the day after Austin’s book talk and told me that he went right out and bought a copy of Ishmael, I was excited for him. To be honest, whenever a book talk “works” I get a satisfied nerd-smile from ear to ear.
So, three days later, when I received the email below indicating that Bennett had already plowed through Quinn’s text, I was floored.
The email below made me cry. Like, A Monster Calls, breathless sobbing (not because I’m tired, or not only because I’m tired), but because this is what we all want. Out of workshop. Out of teaching. Out of life. Out of the end of a long, hard school year.
And no, I don’t mean we all want the email exactly (though I would be lying if I said that hearing a student’s gratitude doesn’t feel amazing), but we want students to grow in their thinking. Challenge themselves, push themselves, take risks, stay up late reading, and come away with new ways of processing this crazy life.
Here is what Bennett sent (with some enthusiastic bolding by yours truly):
Mrs Dennis,
I closed Ishmael at 3:35pm today. After reading, with unexpected vigor I might add, I began to wonder why I plowed through it so willingly. Throughout my reading I thought, and thought, “Why am I liking this?”, “What is making me do this?” It is an important text. It deals with issues leading to very serious implications. It deals with very political and personal questions with very divided answers. New-different-not my-ideas. Ideas I am not accustomed to.
The last book I truly read and loved and finished was Paper Towns by John Green. I read the text with so much vigor, surprising vigor, at that.
I felt that same vigor and that same ‘give me a speeding ticket because I am reading way too furiously to be within the law’-ness, and that same ‘I’m gonna have to stop and get an oil change
Bennett – A “Pretty Cool Guy”
for my head because the motor is running, but I’m not going to’-ality.
And I continued to wonder (sometimes aloud) – “What do I love so (expletive) much about this book?!”
I sat and thought about it.
And I thought.
And thought.
And it dawned on me.
I love this book. Not for its themes, or the author’s word choice, or the overall message contained between its covers. But for the reason that it caused me to start up that thing between my ears, and think.
I think I get it now.
And that’s pretty cool.
Thank You, for passing these skills on to me, so that I can do this with them.
I regret none of American Lit with you Freshman year (I read every word of The Scarlet Letter, and for me, that was scary-awesome), Brit/World Lit with Mrs Adelmann Sophomore year, and AP Lang with you this year. Thank you, you rock.
Books are cool.
I’ve always loved them.
But, now I appreciate them. And the pretty cool guy they’ve helped me become.
Bennett
So let me try and instill (rejuvenate? invigorate? fuel?) a little hope in my worn and weary teaching partners around the world as this school year winds down and I know we could all benefit from a little love:
While we may be trying to merely survive until the end of the school year, to get through it in one piece in order to pick right back up and get ready for next year, teachers inspire. You, reading this, inspire students throughout the year. Even when we are tired, we inspire. With our passion for the written word, our desire to watch learners grow, and our commitment to allowing students choice in their exploration (with our guidance), we inspire.
Sometimes we are lucky enough to see it first hand, to hear about it, and literally embrace the students who let us know how they have been changed (I hugged Bennett on his way into class the next day. He seemed appropriately horrified). Other times, we never know for sure. But, as Quinn claims in Ishmael, we seek pupils to get them thinking, because careful thought can save the world.
The more we tell kids about the importance of reading, show them we are readers, put life changing books in front of them, and passionately share the experience through conferences and their written work, the more students we can reach on a deep and powerful level, because they know we care.
Yes, I’m tired. Really, really tired. But, Austin and Bennett (two pretty cool guys), have reminded me that all the work we’re putting in as a community of learners can really mean something. It can change, and maybe even save, someone’s world.
Most especially in May, when I might argue that many of us need it most.
What is helping fuel you at the end of this school year? Please comment below with your ideas on saving the world, one student (and teacher) at a time!
Lesson: “Have y’all learned about the concepts of primacy and recency in psychology yet? Who can refresh us?”
I quickly model with Room, whose plot is simply explained and well known from a recent booktalk. “I notice the sentence structure first–both lines are short, simple sentences. Then I get a sense of the narrator’s voice, as he is obviously five years old, and that shapes how I’m going to view the text. I also know that while they start out trapped in Room, they manage to escape somehow, either literally or figuratively, because of the last line. I’m intrigued by all of these things, and it sets me up for what sounds like a pretty good read.” As I talk, I note on the board the kinds of things I’m noticing–craft, tone, characterization, theme, plot, sentence structure.
Matching the right student to the right book is at the heart of the reader’s workshop, and lucky for one and all, there are plenty of great books to go around–even for the most 
Series – A great way to immediately get students hooked on audiobooks is to recommend a series they’ve already started. Sequels to titles like The Maze Runner, The Knife of Never Letting Go, Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, Legend, Divergent, City of Bones, and more are great gateways to the world of audiobooks.
Humor – Similarly, so many amazing essayists, comedians, and satirists read their own audiobooks. Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, David Sedaris, Mindy Kaling, Neil Patrick Harris, and more are just a few of the folks whose movies or TV shows I’ve watched, and who’ve then joined me in my car or at the gym in audiobook form.
I am feeling nervous, insecure, and uncertain as my ninth graders start to file into class today. We just started the new trimester a week ago, and about half of my students are still new to me — having come from a different English teacher first term. I remind myself that I am the adult; I am the teacher. Nothing to worry about, right? What’s the worst that can happen?
“I want to tell you about this book I’m reading…”
Janet Neyer (
Three Teachers Talk 